Valentina Sampaio

Sampaio recently covered Vogue Paris’s March issue, which was shot by fashion photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott. This is the first Vogue magazine to feature a transgender model on its cover. (Photo: Vogue France)

French Vogue Features Transgender Model on March Cover

Valentina Sampaio recently made history as the first transgender model to cover Vogue Paris, for the magazine’s March issue. The cover, which was shot by famed fashion photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott and styled by the magazine’s editor in chief, Emmanuelle Alt, features the Brazilian model’s face alongside the caption “Transgender beauty: How they’re shaking up the world.” On Alt’s decision to feature Sampaio, the editor told Vogue, “We are living in a world at the moment, what is happening right now, we are stepping back. Instead of being in a constant evolution, which is what should happen, human rights … they’re not going in a good direction. This cover is about the importance of those rights, and that we still need to make progress on an awful lot of stuff.”

While placing a transgender model on the cover is a major step in universal acceptance for the magazine, Vogue is far from the first publication to do so. Many transgender models have been featured on magazine covers in the past. Check out some of the most notable examples.